Dear Editor (June 1980)

Lirpa Sloof

Dear Editor:

In your January, 1980, issue, the Car Stereo Directory Addenda has a rather bizarre listing for Lirpa Labs. I take it this listing is all in jest no one can say we audiophiles are a humorless bunch.

Then again, maybe you did it to monitor reactions, just to see how many of your readers actually read these Directory listings. If that's the case, do I win anything for pointing it out?

-J. Michael Ferrara Alexandria, Va.

The Editor Replies:

Yes, the listing is in jest, and yes, you do win something for being the first to point it out one case of belly laughs, newly patented by Prof. Lirpa, which come in two sizes, large and extra large, and which will be shipped direct from Lirpa Labs in Bucharest.

More on Tonearm Geometry

Dear Editor:

I was glad to read the excellent article, "Tonearm Geometry and Setup Demystified," by Martin D. Kessler and B. V. Pisha in your January, 1980 issue. However, I would like to take issue with the remark "the earliest complete mathematical study being that of H. G. Baerwald in his paper on optimum geometry in 1941." One can never say with certainty when any study will be complete, but the earliest mathematical study that I know of was published in England by my father, Percy Wilson, in The Gramophone magazine in September 1924 [1]; it was reiterated in his book Modern Gramophones and Electrical Reproducers in 1929 [2] and was referred to in Kogen's historical review in the Centennial Issue of the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society [3]. While my father's study was in terms of the absolute error rather than the weighted error which later authors have used, the difference is small and, I believe, outweighed by all sorts of other errors mentioned by Kessler and Pisha in all but the most sophisticated and fastidiously aligned systems. Alas, the prototype of my father's alignment protractor which was sold by The Gramophone in the 1920s disappeared in his various moves or on packing up his effects; otherwise I would be using it now.

References

1. P. Wilson, "Needle-track Alignment," The Gramophone, Vol. 2, September, 1924, pp. 129132.

2. P. Wilson and G. W. Webb, Modern Gramophones and Electrical Reproducers, Cassell & Company Ltd., 1929.

3. James H. Kogen, "Record Changers, Turntables and Tone Arms A Brief Technical History, lour. of the Audio Engineering Society, Vol. 25, No. 10/11, October/November 1977, pp. 749-758.

Geoffrey L. Wilson State College, Pa.

The True Caruso

Dear Editor:

Children can be cruel ... especially in respect to a fallen artist like Caruso.

Very shortly after writing about the famous tenor's supposed death on stage in the middle of a high note (from my faithful child's memory), I stumbled on a detailed account of his last years, written by his wife Dorothy, which includes dozens of the charming daily letters he wrote to her in his best misspelled English.

Caruso's death, actually, was agonizing and brave; he seems to have "burnt himself out" and in his later years contracted a series of dreadful infections, including acute pleurisy and pneumonia, followed by deep-seated abscesses and finally acute peritonitis. Alas, our present-day antibiotics would surely have prolonged his life by many years.

The episode that set us kids off on our Caruso parody (Audio, January 1980, page 18) was surely the time when a small blood vessel in his throat burst during a performance. Though he continued to try to sing, the curtain had to be brought down on the somewhat grisly scene. Such events are material for legend, especially for kids.

P.S. Caruso ate only moderate amounts of spaghetti.

-Edward Tatnall Canby, Connecticut

(Audio magazine, June 1980 )

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